Although
bot [bɒt]
and crake [kreɪk] are not words for some speakers, and [bʊt] (to rhyme with
put), creck [krek], cruke [kruk], cruk [krʌk], and crike [kraɪk] are not now
words in English, they are ‘possible words’. That is, they are strings of
sounds, all of which represent phonemes, in sequences that are permissible in
English in that they obey the phonotatic constraints of the language. We might
say that they are nonsense words (permissible form with no meanings) or
possible words.
Advertisers constantly take advantage of the fact that
they can use possible but non-occurring words for the name of new products. We
would hardly expect a new product to come on the market with the name [xik],
because [x] (the voiceless velar fricative) is not a phoneme in English. Nor
would a new soap be called Zhleet [ʒlit] because, in English, the voiced
palatial fricative [ʒ] can not occur initially before a liquid. Possible but not
occurring words, such as Bic [bɪk], before it was coined as a brand name, are
accidental gaps in the vocabulary. An accidental gap is a form that ‘obeys’ all
the phonological rules of the language but has no meaning. An actual, occurring
word is a combination of both a permitted form and meaning.
